The list of Republican presidential candidates vowing to officially end the controversial Common Core State Standards continues to grow, with former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., pledging he will put a stop to the federal education standards if elected president.
Santorum is now the fourth GOP presidential candidate to sign Florida Parents Against Common Core’s pledge saying he will officially end Common Core if he is elected president in 2016. Santorum’s signature came on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives passing the Every Student Succeeds Act, a rewrite of No Child Left Behind.
A vocal opponent of Common Core,Santorum says he is opposed to any top-down federal education mandates. He has even homeschooled his seven children, a practice which hits home for many conservative voters who strongly support parental rights.
Santorum's primary concern over the standards, however, is how quick states were to adopt them, with the former senator saying there was little transparency in the process.
“Not one state legislature voted on the Common Core standards,” reads Santorum’s website. “In the forty-five states where they have been adopted, it was by an act of the governor, the state secretary of education, or the state board of education. The people most affected by this enormous policy change—parents and teachers—never had a chance to weigh in.”
Santorum hopped on the anti-Common Core train fairly early -- last year, he penned an op-ed explaining why he opposes Common Core. In the piece, Santorum describes a shadowy process in which the federal government did not seek input from the public before adopting and implementing the standards, something Santorum believes is against the fundamentals of democracy.
“We are beyond encouraged in [Santorum’s] timely commitment in vowing to stop federal involvement in Common Core and to oppose any efforts by the federal government to mandate, impose, or to influence standards, assessments, or curriculum,” said FPACC president Luz Gonzalez. “At a critical time in our fight for education policy that benefits the academic success of our students and the decision making rights of our parents...Senator Santorum...brings renewed vigor to our message -- we will not retreat from eliminating all elements of Common Core from our children’s schools and classrooms.”
Santorum is the third Republican candidate who sat in the U.S. Senate -- after U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to sign the petition. Initially, Cruz was the only candidate to add his name to FPACC’s pledge.
FPACC noted the only remaining U.S. senator running for the GOP nod to not take a stand on the pledge is U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has had a longstanding policy against Common Core over the years. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, who is a major underdog for the Republican nomination, has refused to sign the pledge.
Nearly all other GOP presidential candidates have said they’re against Common Core, but no others have added their names to the pledge to eliminate the standards once and for all come 2016, despite FPACC extending the invitation to sign their pledge last month.
FPACC says it will continue to seek the commitment of other candidates from both the Republican and the Democratic Party as the 2016 election draws closer.
